[Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic
text is surrounded by _underscores_.]
Our Little Philippine Cousin
THE
Little Cousin Series
(TRADE MARK)
Each volume illustrated with six or more full-page plates in
tint. Cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover,
per volume, 60 cents
LIST OF TITLES
BY MARY HAZELTON WADE
(unless otherwise indicated)
=Our Little African Cousin=
=Our Little Alaskan Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Arabian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Armenian Cousin=
=Our Little Australian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Brazilian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Brown Cousin=
=Our Little Canadian Cousin=
By Elizabeth R. MacDonald
=Our Little Chinese Cousin=
By Isaac Taylor Headland
=Our Little Cuban Cousin=
=Our Little Dutch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Egyptian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little English Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
=Our Little French Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little German Cousin=
=Our Little Greek Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
=Our Little Hindu Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Hungarian Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Indian Cousin=
=Our Little Irish Cousin=
=Our Little Italian Cousin=
=Our Little Japanese Cousin=
=Our Little Jewish Cousin=
=Our Little Korean Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Mexican Cousin=
By Edward C. Butler
=Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
=Our Little Panama Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Persian Cousin=
By E. C. Shedd
=Our Little Philippine Cousin=
=Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
=Our Little Russian Cousin=
=Our Little Scotch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Siamese Cousin=
=Our Little Spanish Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Swedish Cousin=
By Claire M. Coburn
=Our Little Swiss Cousin=
=Our Little Turkish Cousin=
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building, Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: ALILA]
ALILA Our Little Philippine Cousin
By Mary Hazelton Wade
_Illustrated by_ L. J. Bridgman
[Illustration]
Boston
L. C. Page & Company
Publishers
_Copyright, 1902_
By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES
(_Trade Mark_)
Tenth Impression, July, 1909
Eleventh Impression, August, 1910
Preface
ON the farther side of the great Pacific Ocean are the Philippine
Islands. These form one of the many island groups that hang like a
fringe or festoon on the skirt of the continent of Asia. Like most of
the islands in the Pacific, the Philippines are inhabited by people
belonging to the brown race, one of the great divisions of the family
of mankind.
The Philippines are shared by many tribes, all belonging to the same
brown race. People of one tribe may be found on one of these islands;
those of a different tribe are living on another; or one tribe may live
in a valley and its neighbour in the hills; and so on to the number of
eighty tribes. Each tribe has its own customs and ways. And yet we
shall call these various peoples of the brown race our cousins; for
not only are they our kindred by the ties which unite all the races of
men in this world; they have been adopted into the family of our own
nation, the United States of America.
The people of these islands are many of them wild and distrustful
children. They have no faith in us; they do not wish to obey our laws.
If we are in earnest in our wish to do them good, and not harm, we must
learn to know them better, so that we may understand their needs. That
is one reason why we are going to learn about our little Philippine
cousin, Alila of Luzon.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE NEW BABY 9
II. HIS FIRST PARTY 15
III. THE CHRISTENING 21
IV. THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSE 25
V. FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDS 29
VI. THE BUFFALO HUNT 33
VII. THE RICH MAN'S HOME 39
VIII. TAPPING FOR TUBA 46
IX. FOREST AND STREAM 51
X. A SWARM OF LOCUSTS 57
XI. THE NEW HOME 63
XII. IN THE FOREST 68
XIII. CROCODILES 73
XIV. TONDA'S STORY 77
XV. STRANGE NEIGHBOURS 81
XVI. THE STOUT-HEARTED SAILOR 88
List of Illustrations
PAGE
ALILA _Frontispiece_
"HIS MOTHER HAD BATHED HIM IN THE WATER OF THE RIVER" 21
"SOMETIMES ALILA RIDES ON HIS BACK" 31
"HE WAS AS NIMBLE AS A SQUIRREL" 49
"SUCH A DIN AND COMMOTION YOU NEVER HEARD" 58
"'AROUND ONE PART OF THE CITY THERE IS A STRONG WALL'" 78
ALILA
Our Little Philippine Cousin
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW BABY.
ALILA is such a strong, active boy now, it is hard to imagine him in
his babyhood,--he was such a tiny brown tot!
His nose was so flat one would hardly have noticed there was a nose at
all, except for the wideness of the nostrils. His big black eyes seemed
to be moving around all the time, as much as to say:
"I must find out everything I can, and just as fast as I can, about
this queer place in which I find myself."
His hair was straight and coarse and black, even on the day he was
born. It was quite warm (in fact, almost all the days are warm in the
Philippines), yet the doorway was carefully covered and the windows
closed tightly.
Now, why do you suppose Alila found himself shut up in a close room
like that when he first entered this big round world of ours, while
there was such a soft gentle breeze outside as scarcely to move the
tops of the cacao-trees in the garden?
The fact is, Alila's father, who is not afraid of the wild buffalo nor
the boa-constrictor, nor even the huge cayman, is constantly dreading
the evil that bad spirits may bring to him. And now he had a darling
boy of his very own! According to the beliefs of his people, no evil
spirit must be allowed to enter a home when a child is born, or the
little one might be troubled by the spirit for the rest of his life.
So the loving parent walked back and forth over the roof waving a bolo
in his hand, as much as to say:
"Look out, spirits, or you may get your throats cut. Keep away from
here. Do not try to get inside to trouble my little one."
He did this very earnestly in the first hour of Alila's life, although
he was shown the foolishness of such ideas by the priests the Spaniards
sent among his people.
He is a small man, this father of Alila. He has high cheek-bones like
the Chinese and Japanese, and no beard upon his face.
When he felt that everything was really safe, he climbed down from the
thatched roof, and, opening the door as little as possible, went softly
up to the mat where the baby lay and kissed him.
But, dear me! not all persons kiss the way we do, and this father of
the Malay race seemed rather to _smell_ the baby than anything else we
can think of. He placed his own nose and lips on the baby's cheek and
drew a long breath. It was done to show his love, and that is what any
kiss is given for, is it not?
This baby's bed would not, perhaps, suit all the other babies in the
world. Some of those babies we know are cared for on cushions of
down and wrapped in soft flannels and delicate muslins. But what did
black-eyed Alila care for that? To be sure, he lay on a mat of woven
palm leaves, but it was sweet and fresh.
And although the floor his eyes sometimes rested on was not covered
with a rich velvet carpet, it was smooth and clean, for it was made of
split bamboos flattened and fitted close together. And oh, that floor
was beautifully polished by Mother Nature herself, for the bamboos as
they grow are covered on the outside with a coating of the finest and
hardest varnish.
If Alila could have thought about it at all, he would have considered
himself more fortunate than most babies,--for did not his own dear
mother, who lay at his side, make every bit of the spread which covered
his tiny body? She had taken the fibres of pineapple leaves and hemp
and woven them together.
But that alone would not make the spread beautiful enough for her
dear one. It must be given a bright colour, so she searched through
the woods till she found a sapan-wood tree; then, breaking off some
branches and opening them, she took a substance from the heart of each
and made a crimson dye.
So you can see that the cover was done entirely by Alila's mother; and
you can ask yourself if that wasn't a hundred times better than buying
cloth out of a store. That would not have the touch of love in its
making.
There was something else in Alila's home one does not see in other
lands. Whenever the baby's eyes turned toward the light, they found
it very soft and restful, for it came through a window in which were
fitted the inner shells of a certain kind of oyster.
It was so pretty! The colours of the rainbow shone there in pale tints,
and the flaring sunshine could not enter. The room was kept in a sort
of twilight all day long, and made it pleasant for the new-born baby
and his mamma to doze and dream.